The time has come to ready your body for another Square Enix port. As usual, you're in for a treat compared to the usual mobile gaming fare. But at the same time, these goods are going to cost you. The company has dropped Dragon Quest IV into the Play Store, and it won't hand it over until you pay $14.99.

Dragon Quest IV originally launched for the Nintendo Entertainment System in the early 90s, but it later appeared on the first PlayStation and the Nintendo DS in an updated form. This port looks closer to the latter two. It's obviously not going to be quite as snazzy as the last game in the series Square Enix brought to Android, Dragon Quest VIII, but it's not a blast of 8-bit nostalgia either. Fans of traditional 2D JRPGs who have yet to experience this gem shouldn't have any difficulties diving in.

At $14.99, the game is relatively steep, but this is still easier and generally less expensive than hunting down an old disc or cartridge online. The game should work on most devices running Android 4.0 or higher, but Square Enix has left a message on the game's Play Store page for those of you running ART. Consider it one more thing to keep in mind before whipping out the credit card.

Warning:

Devices running Android 4.4 may experience problems initialising the app under ART, but as ART is not selected by default, this should not affect the majority of users.

Comments

I really love Dragon Quest but I haven't purchased an Android port yet because I'm not sure if I'll like how it plays.

Darknight630

I'm going to download it in a second but I'm going assume compared to Dragon Quest VIII, this should run better.

Kevin Aaronson

Do you know if it's compatible with xposed?

Darknight630

Oh damn, I forgot about Xposed. Hahah, I guess I'll find out now.

Darknight630

I guess it does work with Xposed. The game just loaded up fine.

Francois Roy

Most certainly not. =(

My biggest gripe against these ports is they don't f'ckin support external controllers. I just don't get it.

Darknight630

Currently have Xposed and it's running just fine.

Darknight630

Controller support is a shame though. No idea why they don't do that yet.

Francois Roy

TBH, they recently added controller support to FFIII and FFIV, but it's still too little too late.
Have u tested with this one?

Darknight630

I don't have a controller myself to test. I just feel for those who do and can't use it.

blindexecutioner

In iOS only though right?

Simon Peter Campbell

I really like what Square Enix is bringing to the mobile gaming world but their ports can vary so hugely in quality that it feel like they're doing more harm than good :-(

Steve Freeman

Someone above said he's running it on his stock M7 with Xposed.

blindexecutioner

If you're rooted you can use an app like tincore keymapper to map touch to controls. It is definitely not as good as native support but it works well in some games.

Kevin

There's a 24hr window.

david coffey

after the Chrono Trigger debacle, i'm done supporting square-enix on the playstore. they're TERRIBLE at updating their apps and fixing bugs. dreadful.

dude

I stopped buying games from them around the time they cease and desist Chrono Resurrection.

Badouken

This is the reason ive never boughten a Square-enix game on the playstore... Im more than willing to pay $10 for a quality game but if it doesn't work / isnt updated then whats the point...

Simon Peter Campbell

Good to know with Android L on the way in a couple of months which enables ART by default that they're preparing their brand new games to be fully compatible.....oh wait this is Square Enix, they aren't going to do that because that would be sensible.....

Mayoo

Chrono Trigger was unable to launch with 4.3 and 4.4. It took them months to fix it. Because why have service when you pay 5x the price of other games?

At least G Bike it supposed to be F2P...

blindexecutioner

Yeah, every game they sell is going to be incompatible for months. they take at least a month to fix minor issues in their games. I can only imagine what changing to ART is going to mean.

Fatal1ty_93_RUS

So where is Final Fantasy VII?

Simon Peter Campbell

Not gonna happen, they've been asked time and time again but it won't happen. They've said they'd only remake it once they feel they've surpassed it with another title which won't happen. They can't exactly port the PC version either because it seems they've lost a lot of the source code so it would require a complete remake. Good luck with that :P

Fatal1ty_93_RUS

That is most bullshit reasoning ever

Simon Peter Campbell

They say remaking it before surpassing it would be admitting defeat which I can understand. There's always FPse if you really want to play it on your phone.

Fatal1ty_93_RUS

Sure, I can. But I am also waiting for a full HD remake of 7, as everybody did for these long 17 years. Oh well, maybe when the game turns 20 SE will finally pull its head out of the ass and finally makes a good FF game

Darknight630

FFVII was already made dude, there's like 3 ways to play it or something lol

dude

Tthe character design of new FF games make me pukes, if the HD remake have the characters looking anything like the cast of FF13, I'll skip.

Mayoo

Best would be original design + alternate OPTIONAL costumes (let's say AC for example)

dude

I recommend ePSXe over FPse.

Francois Roy

They don't release it on mobile because the max download is 2gb on iOS. Simple as that.

dude

I think that's more than enough. The only reason the game was 3 disc was because of the videos which were basically mpeg2 format. They could include all that media by better compressioning.

Francois Roy

For all I know is the PC version is 3gb

dude

It used AVI format, I don't remember what the codec was, but it wasn't well compressed either.

SYSSMouse

That's the Steam re-release which was modified. Original PC release in 1998 was still 3 discs (plus one install disc)

SYSSMouse

More than that. Some videos and game file repeats on different disc.

Alan Shearer

On the PSN the FF7 is 1.3gb.......

Dissidence

I read this the other day. While I certainly can't say that I fully agree, it's worth a read.

Glad to see they spelled it correctly this time. In the iTunes Store it's "Dargon Quest".

tdurden64111

Dargon Quest #1 game long time.

Darknight630

I'm playing it on an M7 (Stock, Xposed) and it loads and plays just fine. Plays nicely with one hand and doesn't slug around like DQVIII did.

Kevin Aaronson

Thanks!

Matthew Fry

Again with the portrait mode.

viper

Thos is port from Nintendo DS, that have two screens, so there is only solution to merege screens and make it portrait mode. IMO it is right decision.

Matthew Fry

Good point.

blindexecutioner

Ahh, makes sense. I was thinking it was another one of those dumb decisions like VIII. At least there was a good reason here that makes sense.

mcKen

Any extra content in Android version that set it apart from DS or iPhone version?
for $14.99 must have something really worth.

primalxconvoy

Less actually. Probably lacking any video cut scenes in the DS version (like FF3 suffered from).

primalxconvoy

Except with DS emulator, the USER can choose portrait, double screen via landscape OR even single screen (with the ability to switch screens via a button press).

Just Google Play search for "DraStic".

Who needs crappy ports like this, with great emulators?

Jason

Baalzack = Ballsack

*snicker*

uopjo6

Can I select Japanese a a language? I wish they would make it more clear in the description.

primalxconvoy

"Not Compatible with Japanese Galaxy Note 2 in Japan".

Square is a joke. Their games are expensive ports of console games with less features than said ports (no physical controller support, lacking fmv scenes, etc).

Furthermore, trying to contact them via the email address supplied at Google Play prompts an auto reply, then a link to a non-related page, forcing you to then search they labrynthine site for the " email contact page " to then start AGAIN what your problem was.